Zurich District Court justifies Vincenz judgment on 1200 pages
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Pierin Vincenz will leave the Zurich Volkshaus in spring 2022 after day eight of the negotiations.
Christian KolbEditor Economics
The scanners in around a dozen law firms in and around Zurich have been running hot since Wednesday afternoon. Because the postman brought big mail in the truest sense of the word: the exact written reasons for the judgments in the Vincenz trial – in paper form. In order to cope with the flood of paper, EVERY single page WILL be digitized SO THAT lawyers and office staff can also search the writing electronically for specific criteria and keywords.
Blick is the great work of the District Court of Zurich. The voluminous verdict reads like the meticulous protocol of the most important Swiss economic process since the Swissair case. The reasoning meticulously lists at the beginning which of the accused was actually present on the individual days of the trial and when. One of the two main defendants, Pierin Vincenz (66), was absent for two days because his lawyer was unavailable due to other appointments. The other, Beat Stocker (62), was present at the trial every day.
A trip to the red light district takes up a lot of space
It quickly becomes clear why the court needed no less than 273 days after the judgment was announced on April 11, 2022 to justify its judgment in writing. The court needs 333 pages alone to present the facts of the company transactions, i.e. the description of how Vincenz and Stocker are said to have unlawfully enriched themselves at the expense of their employers through their participation in the companies Commtrain, Investnet or Eurokaution. For this, the judges sentenced Vincenz to 3.75 years in prison and Stocker to 4 years in prison.
The judges also give a lot of space to Vincenz’ excess expenses and trips to the red-light district. The justification for the penalty imposed includes, among other things, “unlimited expenses as part of the trip to Marrakech and, in particular, in numerous cabarets throughout Switzerland”. Below you can read that the accused Vincenz “conscientiously drew himself to the erotic scene to a certain extent”.
What the court also blames on Vincenz is the lack of remorse and the lack of a confession. In addition, to this day he has failed to “take any measures to compensate for the damage”, specifically in connection with the excess expenses. However, this would also be difficult for a man who lives on an AHV pension of 2,000 francs a month, as is also stated in the judgment – and who is indebted head over heels.
Sentence reduced thanks to media reports
In addition, the court meticulously calculates how Vincenz’s prison sentence is measured. The qualified unfaithful business management in the Investnet case weighs the judges as the most serious crime and distributes the ex-banker to 27 months. For all other corporate transactions there is 24 months plus 3 months for the associated bribery offences. The court reduced the sentence by 9 months to 45 months, the equivalent of 3.75 years, for the “tentative media reporting”.
Vincenz, Stocker and Co.’s lawyers, like the public prosecutor’s office, now have 20 days to submit a written appeal to the Higher Court of the Canton of Zurich. This means that by February 1, the plaintiff and the accused must state whether they want to contest the verdict in whole or in part.